Kate Just, A Sign of the Times: A knitted translation of Demian DinéYazhi, we must stop imagining apocalypse / genocide + we must imagine liberation, 2024 installed facing the window out of the Whitney Museum during the Whitney Biennial (2026)
Hand knitted wool and acrylic yarn, timber, canvas
86 x 60cm x 2.5cm

This work pays homage to artist Demian DinéYazhi, who presented a three-stanza neon installation in the 2024 Whitney Biennale in New York. Entitled we must stop imagining apocalypse / genocide + we must imagine liberation, their work features nine lines of political poetry. When its letters would blink, only a few remained fully lit, spelling out “free Palestine.” Installed facing a wall of windows overlooking the West Side Highway and the Hudson River, this hidden message was unknown to the show’s curators.

DinéYazhi, is a member of the Diné clans Naasht’ézhí Tábąąhá (Zuni Clan Water’s Edge) and Tódích’íí’nii (Bitter Water) and is based in Portland, Oregon. The poem on which the neon sign was based, was written by the artist in 2019, and according to art historian Josie Roland Hodson, reflects DinéYazhi’s ongoing practice of decolonial resistance and institutional critique.

The poem reads:

we must stop imagining destruction + 
extraction + deforestation + cages + torture + 
displacement + surveillance + genocide!

we must stop predicting
apocalypses + fascist governments + 
capitalist hierarchies!

we must pursue + 
predict + imagine routes 
toward liberation!

DinéYazhi noted that the installation “became an opportunity to have a commentary on current world events and do so in a way that was respectful to people’s humanity and dignity.”

My knitted homage pictures a view of the work from outside the museum as captured in the New York Times, and like the work it refers to, is a subtle message one must stop and look closely at to see and reflect.